Calebrooke Commission

In failing to establish a laissez-faire state in Ceylon, British appointed a commission called Calebrooke -Cameron commission. The main concerns of the commission were to eliminating mercantilism, state monopolies, discriminatory administrative regulations and any interference in the economy. Above problems were considered with regard to the Dutch rule and the commission was a major step to eliminate those mal-functions.

Calebrooke Commission showed an increased function during 1830s and 1840s. It's waves spread allover the political, economic and social spheres. Many of the proposals made by the commission, basically on administrative, economic, judicial, and educational were continued for next century.

The commission was recommended to keep country under an one administrative system, and five provinces based on the culture and language of the people. Cameron made the changes in judicial to bring the justice in front of law. In 1633 his concept was granted.

Calebrooke Commission suggested an Executive Council, that to replace and reduce the power of the government. A legislative council to discuss the legislative matters.

The Council consisted three Sri Lankas to represent Sinhalese, Burghers, and Tamils in 1833. During the British colonization the English education was prominent. The Calebrooke Commission emphasized the importance of the education through the local languages.


Crew Maclum Amendments

In 1910, there was a distinct change in constitutional council. The number of members were increased to a twenty one. Eleven of them were officially appointed and other ten were non-official. Out of non-official members, six were appointed by the governor, for different races and remaining four were elected.

One of the important steps in Maclum reforms is establishing the right for ballot. It was given to a limited number of people depending on their asserts and level of education, which all with right of ballot in the country were about four percent. The four of non-official members, elected with limited ballot, included with two Europeans, one Burger and one Sri Lankan, who was Ponnambalam Ramanathan.

Another main step was establishing the financial committee. The important issue is this committee included the colonial secretary, colonial treasurer, revenue controller and all the non-officially elected members. The financial committee was able to control the revenue, at the time where there are no constitutional meetings. Non-officially elected members were allowed, for some extent, to involve in ruling.

However, there were no much changes in governor or in constitutional council. But the Maclum reforms were unable to satisfy the Sri Lankan, so there were clamors requesting for power and positions. This was a great annoyance to British because Second World War also started at this period. During this time Sri Lankan clamors were well organized. The Sri Lankan National society gave the leadership to most of the clamors. Sri Lankan National society in 1919, presented a set of constitutional reforms. It was included, increment of members constitutional council up to fifty, a divisional representation, handover the control of budget to the legislature, and electing both official and non-official members of executive council are some of the suggestions. Taking those in to consideration again there was a reformation in 1920, called Manning Reforms.

First Manning Reforms

A clear change in First Manning Reforms is increment of the number of members in constitutional council up to thirty seven. Fourteen of them were officially appointed and other twenty three were non-official. First time in Sri Lankan history, the non-official members became the majority.

Sixteen of non-official agents were elected from with limited ballot, the remaining seven was appointed by the governor. When electing sixteen of non-official agents, in spite of electing regarding the race, it was also introduced the divisional representation. Out of sixteen of non-official agents, ten were elected divisionally, that is three from western province and each from other provinces. There were no much change to the governor’s position. Three non-officials were elected to the executive council; however they were unable to exert much pressure.

Still the Sri Lankans were not satisfied and a set of changes were presented by the Sri Lankan National society. Those suggestions included;

1. Constitutional council with forty five members
2. Twenty of them needed to be elected from poling divisions
3. Selecting eleven for minority by nomination
4. Selecting a speaker to Constitutional council from the members
5. Consisting the executive council from three officials and three non-officials
6. Lower the qualifications for right of ballot

While these changes were introduced by Sinhalese leaders of Sri Lankan National society, the Tamil leaders introduced their own changes. Taking these changes into consideration the, it was presented to the colonial secretary by the governor Manning.

 

Second Manning Reforms

Under Second Manning Reforms, the number of members of the constitutional council were forty nine. Only twelve of them were officials, where as other thirty seven were non-officials. Out of non-officials, twenty nine were elected, and others were nominated by the governor. The head of the constitutional council were handed over from the governor to a selected member. Main idea behind this was to keep the governor as a counselor. But still the authority of the country was the governor.
Executive council was upgraded to ten members and four of them were selected from non-officials of constitutional council. But the other six officials were powerful enough to suppress the non-officials.

Second Manning Reforms had more weaknesses. The legislature was a weak institute. There were non-officials more than three times, that of officials. But it was not a much constrain to the governor, due to racial difference between members of non-officials. The power and responsibility was separated; that is non-officials had no much power, and therefore Sri Lankans had responsibilities with no power.

Separation between constitutional council and executive council was a greater constraint, which should have had solidarity. Even four members from the constitutional council were selected to the executive council, they had no much power.
Presence of both racial representation and divisional representation made conflicts between races, which was advantageous for British rulers. Even twenty nine was elected by ballot, the number of people with right to ballot is lower. The power of the governor had to be reduced, since Sri Lanka was unable to use their minor power.

These weaknesses were presented to the colonial secretary by the governor Huckliford. Eventually the Donoughmore Commission was sent to the Sri Lanka.

Donoughmore Commission 1937

In 1927 a royal commission under the Earl of Donoughmore arrived in Sri Lanka to find out why the representative government as charted by 1924 constitution had failed and make changes to over come the shortcomings. The commission proposed international adult franchise and an experimental system of government to be run by executive committee, to amend the shortcomings.

The proposed donoughmore constitution proclaimed in 1931 to accommodate these new proposals in government, was a unique document that provided Sri Lankans with self-government. The document assign the highest level of authority to the British Governor. The legislative branch of the government, the State Council functioned in both an executive and legislative capacity. Seven committees performed executive duties. Each committee consisted of designated members of the State Council and was chaired by an elected Sri Lankan, who was addressed as minister. The board of ministers was formed with three British
officers of ministerial rank along with seven Sri Lankan ministers. The British ministers totally handled responsibility for Defense, External affairs, Finance, and Judicial matters.

The Donoughmore Constitution implemented in period of experimentation in participatory democracy. The executive committees did not tend to development of national political parties. As a result the Great Council of the Sinhalese (Sinhala Maha Sabha) was originated. The Sinhala Maha Sabha was the strongest proponent of this resurgent ideology. Other communal grounds also tend to organized political parties including the Burgher Political Association in 1938,The Ceylon Indian Congress in 1939, and the All Ceylon Tamil Congress in 1944.

Soulbery constitution

In 1944, a committee leaded by Lord Soulbery arrived Sri Lanka according to the statement made by Sri Lankan ministers. The commission enquired the existing constitution and submitted a report to British government. The report was mainly similar to the Sri Lankan minister's propositions.
A new Government constitution was arranged based on the Soulbery propositions. An election was conducted according to the new legislation in 1947 and decided to negotiate with the electing government and give a dominant status. Soulbery legislation consisted following behest.

1.1947 Lanka Independence act
2.1947 Lanka Independence Royal order
3.1946 Lanka Governance Royal order

The Soulbery constitution was spread with in 25 years and put the basement to the 1st Republic constitution.